[chinesekiwi]

Mine arrived today shipped from Hong Kong to NZ.

I expected it to be small but that small, wow.....

Will test it out soon.
mmmm...my RE2's are getting shipped back from replacement and I've heard great things about this combo with the Fiio so...come on TNT post!

I'll test it out on some low impedance Denon c551's for now.

 

[chinesekiwi]

My initial impressions of the Fiio (paired up with the Cowon D2 and Denon c551's, will do a RE2 impression when it arrives back from replacement as the internal cord broke).

Anyway, with the Cowon D2 and the Denon c551's:

*When I plugged into the IEM's into the headphone jack of the Fiio without any input, The hiss was quite noticeable

*A lot of people in this thread have stated that it has a bit of bass boost and yes I can confirm that as well

* It does open up the soundstage a bit as well. The separation of the instruments, particularly in rock songs., is quite enhanced as well

Since the C551's have good and accurate bass reproduction and the Cowon D2 has the Mach3Bass feature, I'd thought I'd test out how much bass I can get:

I tried two songs 'Hold Your Colour' by Pendulum and 'Minefields' by Prodigy, as both songs have a good amount of bass throughout the song.

All I can say is wow, despite the bass rolloff of the D2, it's a bassheads dream. It is accurate, tight and super deep, much more 'boom, buh' than 'doof, doof'.

A great combo for a basshead no doubt in my opinion.

In other impressions, the stated '-8' on the volume front is quite correct as well.

All and all, a fantastic wee amp for the price.
Only drag I have about it is the colour. We need black coloured ones too Fiio!

I might even test it out on some low impedance headphones like the AD-700.

 

[wicker_man]

I have used the Fiio with my JVC Marshmallows (no mods) and I don't think they work well together. There is a bit too much bass and not enough highs, and a hiss can be heard. This is using Apple Lossless on my iPod Classic with no EQ.

Maybe it will be better with some more expensive headphones?

 

[dfkt]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wicker_man /img/forum/go_quote.gif Maybe it will be better with some more expensive headphones?

"Expensive" is not the key... the FiiO works fine with higher impedance, lower sensitivity phones.

 

[berniebennybernard]

What would be considered high impedance/low sensitivity? I've been around and reading Head-Fi for a while, and I don't run into these terms as often as I probably should.

 

[psyllium]

Quote:

Originally Posted by berniebennybernard /img/forum/go_quote.gif What would be considered high impedance/low sensitivity? I've been around and reading Head-Fi for a while, and I don't run into these terms as often as I probably should.

I too would like to know ball-park figures...

<wildstab>
I'd guess high impedance would be > 80 ohms? Low sensitivity might be < 100 dB/mW? So maybe if we say the Fiio is recommended for high impedance or low sensitivity?

</wildstab>

 

[nsx_23]

Anybody here using the FiiO with Grado SR60s? How well does this combination work?

 

[kostalex]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nsx_23 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Anybody here using the FiiO with Grado SR60s? How well does this combination work?

It works very well. I tried FIIO with my DYI headphone based on iGrado drivers (which are the same to SR60 drivers). FIIO makes them less bright and more bassy, and I like both of these changes.

 

[nsx_23]

Ah that sounds good. A slightly less bright sound and more bass should make them work well with some jazz stuff I have.

 

[kenchi1983]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wicker_man /img/forum/go_quote.gif I have used the Fiio with my JVC Marshmallows (no mods) and I don't think they work well together. There is a bit too much bass and not enough highs, and a hiss can be heard. This is using Apple Lossless on my iPod Classic with no EQ. Maybe it will be better with some more expensive headphones?

I have to second that. I used the marsh with a sansa e250 (an already noisy source w/hiss+static) and it introduced even more. too bassy for me.

I tried it with my almost broken grado sr80 (needs recabling, and deteriorated pads), and it seems to work very very well. It bumped up the bass quite a bit, maybe a tad much than i like.

 

[natim9]

Anyone tested it with Sony a729/829?

 

[chinesekiwi]

Testing it with the low impedance throughly burned in, AD700 with an ASIO'ed Xtremegamer and FLAC files as source:

Impressions so far:

* The Fiio boosts the volume about 8-9 dB
* Makes the AD700 much less bright and more warm sounding
* Definitely benefits from the boosted bass from the Fiio
* The Fiio makes it slightly more analytical at the expense of brightness.
* It lessens the AD700's soundstage i.e. makes it smaller

What I've noticed from the Fiio is that well, unfortunately, it's a not suited to complex music in much electronic instrument based songs.
I prefer the ad700 without the Fiio amp tbh.

 

[chinesekiwi]

After tweaking with the D2 EQ, I've found the perfect (yet unusual) EQ for it for rock/metal songs as D n B and stuff, the bass boost of it = fantastic:

-2 (to counter the bass boost), 2, 0, 2, 5 (to brighten it up as the Fiio does darken it).

That's my preference anyway.

 

[Seidhepriest]

Quote:

Originally Posted by chinesekiwi /img/forum/go_quote.gif After tweaking with the D2 EQ, I've found the perfect (yet unusual) EQ for it for rock/metal songs as D n B and stuff, the bass boost of it = fantastic: -2 (to counter the bass boost), 2, 0, 2, 5 (to brighten it up as the Fiio does darken it). That's my preference anyway.

On which frequencies?

 

[dfkt]

The Fiio boosts everything below 500Hz by 3dB (with a Q-factor of 0.5 or so), so it can't really be "fixed" by the D2's lower shelf. And I assume lowering the 2nd and 3rd band doesn't really make a flat curve as well, since it has no proper Q factor, only "normal" and "wide".